January 13, 2013 -- International Viewpoint -- The protests and mobilisation that started in the small town of De Doorns on November 6, 2012, galvanised the anger of farm dwellers against decades of
discontent at extreme exploitation and oppression that persist on farms,
in rural towns and South Africa's agricultural sector.

De Doorns is not dissimilar to hundreds of small rural towns across
the Western Cape province and South Africa as a whole. The grievances and problems that
farmworkers and rural poor speak of extend from the Western Cape to the borders of South Africa in Limpopo
and Mpumalanga. However, the De Doorns uprising has to be seen an
important moment. Like Marikana in the mining sector, De Doorns has
ignited the imagination of farmworkers and the rural poor. As with the
mineworkers' demand for R12,500 (US$1428) per month, the farmworkers' demand of R150 ($17) per day has become the rallying call of the struggle.

In fact, mining and agriculture, the historical backbone of South African capitalism, have been severely shaken.

Historic strike

The spontaneous protests and often self-organised actions of farmworkers that unfolded on farms and in rural towns are historic,
inspiring and have indeed stunned the rural establishment. Even the
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forests Tina Joemat-Pettersson
recognised this when she said, “farms and agriculture in the
Western Cape will never be the same again”.

The significance of what has been unfolding is
that a people who have been labouring under almost feudal conditions,
yet remained poorly organised (union representation stands at less than
5%), rose up spontaneously on some of the wealthiest and most productive
farmlands in the country, demanding a living wage and radical
transformation of the countryside.

A new generation of farmworkers has grown up in the post-apartheid
South Africa. These are young workers who challenge their parents for
not standing up to decades of oppression on the farms. They’ve had
better education, and if one uses the towns of De Doorns and Robertson as examples, cell phones and social media such as Mixit, played an
important role in motivating and facilitating neighbouring farmworkers
to join in action. Access to popular organisations, television and the
radio contributed significantly to overcoming the isolation and
marginalisation of farmworkers and allowed for co-ordination – however
tentative.

Rural women, many of them seasonal workers, have played a leading
role in mobilising at community level in townships and informal
settlements on the outskirts of farms. In many instances women led the
protests, giving confidence to the men to follow suit. These women often
earn less than the men and have more insecure conditions of employment
and tenure.

Behind the strike

It is important to ask what ignited the struggles in De Doorns. What
has given rise to this historic awakening in the rural areas? And why
has the strike and protests been able to spread to many of the
surrounding rural towns in the Western Cape in a relatively short space
of time?

It relates in essence to a range of objective and subjective reasons. Key among these is the
fact that despite the legal changes in labour relations since 1994, little has
changed on South Africa’s farms. Rather, one can describe much of the
current labour relations as a continuation of the apartheid-era of baasskap, feudalistic social and economic conditions of master-servant relations. Massive human rights violations have continued, as
highlighted by many local reports as well as the August 2011 Human Rights
Watch report Ripe with Abuse. The post-apartheid Labour Relations Act as well as
other labour legislation supporting equity and decent work has been
largely ignored by farmers.

The Department of Labour, which is supposed to monitor and undertake
inspections of farms, is unable to cope. It has very limited access
to farms and, even worse, sometimes colludes with the farmers against the
workers.

Conditions of abuse

Over these past few weeks, in meeting after meeting, farmworkers told stories of how they work and live:

“This week my pay was only R240 [$27] and I don’t know why. I don’t get a pay slip.” (Bonnievale)

“When I joined the union I was told that I must fuck off from his farm, he wants no trouble makers.” (Francois, Ashton)

“They are so rude and abusive, they are racist and speak very badly to us.” (Betty, De Doorns)

There are many stories of violence and intimidation:

“A group of us were huddled together taking shelter from the rain and
the farm manager marched up to us and ordered us to go back to work.
Suddenly he started beating us with a spade.” (Gawie, Ashton)

“Just before the strike was to resume the farmer lined us up against
the fence, pointed his shotgun at us, told us he will shoot the lot of
us if we join the strike.”

From many of these testimonies it was also clear that a substantial
number of farmworkers earn well below the R70 [$8] per day minimum wage that
is the bone of contention.

“I work on an apricot farm on the road to
Montague where I am paid 89c for every 25kg drum of apricots I fill, and
if I want to earn a lousy R89 [$10] per day I have to fill over 100 drums
with apricots. At the end of such a week all my limbs ache and I can
barely stand straight.” (Margriet, Montague)

These are stories of hardship and suffering. Many have similar tales
of how they are constantly humiliated, belittled and even beaten:

“My
boss has seven farms but we don’t have toilets and when we demanded
toilets, he said he would rather buy an additional farm than install
toilets... All their children go to university and have cars. We cannot
afford anything, not even school shoes.”

Problems of organising farmworkers

Today there are just over 500,000 farmworkers in South Africa, of
which the largest proportion, 121,000, are employed in the Western Cape province.
Very few farmworkers, both permanent and seasonal, are organised. In
fact, only three to five per cent are unionised. The history of the
labour movement in South Africa suggests that it was extremely difficult
to organise farmworkers during the apartheid era given the strong state
controls in rural areas, which made access to farms, where most of the
farmworkers lived, very difficult.

Those parts of the Western Cape where the protests and strikes have
been fiercest are also the regions that are most organised, with a
stronger presence of small unions, popular movements, farmworkers’
associations and NGOs.

Democratic South Africa has introduced a battery of progressive
legislation. The constitution guarantees the right to
freedom of expression and association. While in theory everyone has the
right to belong to a union of their choice and the right to strike, most
farmworkers have been denied these rights through the prevailing
conditions of fear and intimidation that is the everyday reality of
South Africa’s farming system. Joining a union often leads to eviction
or retrenchment.

Another difficulty that confronts those organising farmworkers is the
very isolation of the farms and workers who reside on them. Unlike
urban workers, farmworkers struggle to meet with other workers
regularly. There is a lack of access to public transport and resources
to link up and organise.

Deepening poverty

Behind the strike also lies a tale of deepening poverty, ironically
entrenched by rising food prices. Low wages and increasing costs have
served to intensify the desperation to the point that farmworkers have
little to lose by rising up.

Farmworkers complain that they spend the bulk of their meagre income
on food, yet still go hungry. This is a complaint from both those living
on the farms and the contract and seasonal workers. Those who live on
the farms very often buy food on credit from the shops set up by the
farmer on the farm itself. They also buy electricity via pre-paid
meters recently installed in their shack-like homes. They
often have to pay rent and pay an additional amount for children living
with them, but not working on the farm.

The result is direct deductions from their wages against the balance
of what they owe. This "credit system" has left thousands of
workers in a cascading debt trap. Over and above this, farmworkers also
have to pay school fees and in some cases boarding fees for hostels.
This burden of feeding and fending for the family as well as the
extended family piles additional pressure on meagre incomes.

Inequality is extremely stark where impoverished farmworkers live in
such close proximity to the farmer and his family. Glaring disparities
in living conditions, sanitation, transport and mobility, access to
health services are right in your face. The farmworker is made to
feel sub-human. The more the
farmworker does not have, the less deserving he or she is considered to
be. For example, denying their farmworkers decent sanitation in the
vineyards and fields serves to entrench the farmers' perception of
their employees as animals. This much is apparent as one goes from farm
to farm.

Sleeping giant

These difficulties notwithstanding, the sleeping giant has stirred. A
new period has dawned. Farmworkers in more than 20 towns across the
Western Cape have mobilised and started to organise themselves, both on
the farms and in informal settlements where many contract workers
live. The protests and strike have seen contract workers and seasonal
workers (including those who live on the farms and those who are brought
in each day) making common cause.

The protests have also unlocked new forms of self-organisation on the
farms as farmworkers establish farmworker committees. Significantly,
alliances between small farmer organisations, contract workers and
community groups have cohered to not only support the protests, but also
to make new links between the basic demands of the farmworkers and
those who demand a radical transformation of the countryside.

Perhaps the words of Marx should be
invoked when we see the truckloads of workers travelling to farms daily:
“Capitalism has produced its own gravedigger”.

[Mercia Andrews is a land rights activist and is a member of the Democratic Left Front.]

Stop rural slavery! Respect the farmworkers!

Via Campesina Africa solidarity statement on the farmworkers' mobilisation in South Africa

Maputo, January 14, 2013 – During November 2012,
the world watched farmworkers' strikes, particularly those working
in vinyards, in the Western Cape province, South Africa. They were
protesting against exploitation and poor working and living conditions
on farms, demanding an increase in minimum wages. In many cases, South
African police responded to the demonstrations with violence and
intolerance and showed no respect for laws. Many farmworkers and
activists were arrested, including peasants of the Agrarian Reform for
Food Sovereignty Campaign, a member of La Via Campesina.

After dubious negotiations that halted the strikes in December, the
South African government has refused to make any change to the minimum
wage and the situation has remained unchanged. Early this January
farmworkers resumed the strikes and are being heavily repressed by
police.

Since the strikes began, South African civil society organisations
have denounced the fact that owners of the farms and the police were
acting in close collusion to repress the striking workers; they
benefit from a high level of impunity. It also appears obvious that
the owners of the farms are continuing to pour racist and sexist insults
on farmworkers.

The farmworkers' strike in South Africa has to be seen as an African
movement of the rural poor protesting against injustice and
explotation.The agricultural sector in South Africa employs not only
South African citizens. Many of the farmworkers working in bad
conditions are migrant workers: men and women from neighbouring countries
such as Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. These farmworkers are
sometimes the most affected by the owners of the farms, who take
advantage of the fact that they are in many cases working illegally
and without social protection. South African commercial farming is the
most powerful on the continent; it flourishes at the expense of the
oppression and exploitation of agricultural workers.

These strikes are also the result of the government’s failure to
implement land reform in South Africa. The 30 per cent land
distribution that was promised by 2015 is very far from being
implemented. In fact, in 2013 it is now 100 years since a Land Act
that dispossessed millions of people from the land and turned them into
the super-exploited farmworkers and the South African proletariat, was
constituted in 1913. These strikes are a cry of ”Enough is enough!” of 100 years of rural slavery.

The African region of the International Peasant´s Movement, La Via
Campesina, declares its support and solidarity with the farmworkers in
South Africa and condemns all forms of violence perpetuated by the
South African police and government against all farmworkers and
activists. We join the voice of South African civil society
organisations and demand that the South Africa government take active
steps to listen to and act on the call of the agricultural workers who
are demanding a living wage and a life of dignity.

[La Via Campesina is an international movement of peasants, small and
medium producers, landless, rural women, Indigenous people, rural
youth and agricultural workers. We are an autonomous, pluralist and
multicultural movement, independent of any political, economic or other
type of affiliation. Born in 1993, La Via Campesina now gathers about
150 organisations in 70 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the
Americas.]